Haddad meets with MST to discuss agrarian reform

The Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, received this Wednesday (18) representatives of the Landless Rural Workers Movement (MST) to discuss agrarian reform and the settlement of camped families. In the social mediathe MST stated that it discussed with the minister the “emergency settlement of the 65 thousand families currently camped across the country”.

“We have a government that wants to do it, but we have to create the conditions for it,” said Haddad about strengthening public policies linked to the group’s demands, reported the MST. The movement also presented to the minister the “need to seek instruments that ensure a consistent budget” for the requests. Among them, according to the group, is the updating of the Rural Land Property Tax (ITR) and the allocation of public lands, those belonging to large debtors and those used to commit crimes, for agrarian reform.

“We need to move forward in organizing new forms of production, based on cooperation,” said the minister when discussing the allocation of land belonging to large Union debtors for agrarian reform, according to the group. In addition to Haddad, the Minister of Agrarian Development, Paulo Teixeira, also participated in the meeting this morning. This week, the MST had already met with the Minister of Planning, Simone Tebet, to discuss the allocation of budget resources to agrarian reform policies.

“The meetings were part of the National Journey ‘for Land and Real Food for the People’, which mobilized 17 states in the country in various acts and demonstrations. Furthermore, the Landless Families donated more than 20 tons of food to needy populations in several cities in Brazil,” the MST said in a statement. “The meetings raised concrete questions about how we can seek to prioritize the budget and increase revenue to make agrarian reform viable,” said Ceres Hadich, from the MST’s national directorate.